Building a Research Agenda To Promote IT-Enabled Change in Government Institutions

Building a Research Agenda To Promote IT-Enabled Change in Government Institutions Jane E Fountain Associate Professor Director, National Center for Digital Government John F Kennedy School of Government Harvard University Jane_Fountain@Harvard.edu Jane E Fountain Rough draft of paper prepared for the conference, Transforming Enterprise, Washington, D.C., January 27-28, 2003 This paper draws extensively from Jane E Fountain, “Information, Institutions and Governance: Advancing a Basic Social Science Research Program for Digital Government,” report of an NSF research workshop held in May 2002 at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University This work is sponsored by the National Science Foundation under award no EIA-0203085 Support was provided by the Digital Government Program, the Digital Society and Technologies Program, and the Political Science Program at the National Science Foundation Building a Research Agenda To Promote IT-enabled Change in Government This paper delineates the contours of a research program to promote and to illuminate IT-enabled change in the government sector A growing, but as yet miniscule, stream of research is available on technology and government Rather than review this research in detail here, the paper focuses on the research needed to detail with greater precision the drivers and barriers to further change and the principal research issues that would constitute a coherent research program on digital and electronic government Purpose and Objectives The potential of information and communication technology to fundamentally affect the basic structures and processes of governance signals a disjunctive change with serious implications for research and practice Although a substantial number of publications speculate on the future and the promise or peril of technology, much less theory-based scholarly research has been undertaken Moreover, a research agenda that is systematic and cumulative has yet to be developed Digital government research to date has been undertaken largely by entrepreneurial scholars from a variety of different fields and backgrounds working in relative isolation from one another and with little institutional support from professional associations, mentors, and the complex web that constitutes the academy There is only an emergent community of scholars to whom universities, nonprofits, and government decisionmakers might turn for scholarly and applied research, results, and guidance Similarly, an emerging, but as yet incoherent, field of research at the intersection of information technology, organization, and governance could be developed to serve the nation Central research topics with the potential to promoted IT-enabled change include: • • • • Cross-agency and interorganizational, networked, use of the Internet and related information technologies Structural, process, administrative, management, and governance changes related to the development of networked organizational and technical systems Effects of networked arrangements on the policymaking process, on decisionmaking in government, and on a variety of political, organizational and institutional issues including power, interest group processes, and federalism Broader implications of networked governance for democratic theory, accountability, jurisdiction, privacy, civic engagement, business-government relations, and the institutional structure of government A set of research questions would include the following: What are the most important impacts of information technologies on the structure and processes of government organizations? Which impacts are already discernible? Which are likely to emerge during the next decade? Reversing the causal arrow, how are public managers and policymakers using information technologies to craft new organizational forms or to make important modifications to present forms? What decisionmaking and problem-solving processes are emerging as the principal means of mutual adjustment? What is the impact of increasing use of information-based, networked forms of organization on the institutional structures – for example, oversight, budgeting, and accountability systems that regulate governance? What perspectives, theories, conceptual frameworks, and methods seem particularly useful for the study of the developmental processes and organization of digital government? What forms and processes of collaboration between social, policy, and information scientists might further a research agenda for digital government? How might an organization like the National Science Foundation Digital Government Program provide incentives for the advancement of high-quality multidisciplinary research? A powerful research base is intended to foster a stronger democratic society; to build capacity for policymaking, government operations, and service delivery; and to maintain the ability of the United States to lead digital government research and practice internationally In some cases, the outcome of digital government research will be to diffuse the use of information technologies in government more quickly But other research findings may slow diffusion by revealing potential negative consequences of planned uses of IT in government In all cases, the results of digital government research should be to provide knowledge and tools that improve governance in two fundamental ways First, research findings should improve existing government programs and processes by increasing speed, transparency, and convenience and by lowering costs Second, digital government research fosters the development of new government capacity by enabling new types of programs, organizational forms, service delivery mechanisms, and policy design.2 Government operates in a distinct structural, political, and economic environment whose ultimate aim is democracy rather than efficiency or profit Multiple constituencies influence government structures, processes, and programs through democratic means Thus, the planning and development of digital government, while bearing some similarities to analogous efforts in the private sector, follows a distinct course governed by multiple constituencies, separation of powers, checks and balances, political and budgetary cycles, and other institutions of democracy in the United States Although many findings and lessons from business and research based largely on private sector firm behavior can be applied to government, direct translation is difficult and problematic Some high-performing private sector firms are able to link the actions of divisions within the firm to ultimate success in terms of profit and loss Government was never developed to measure success in terms of profit and confounding variables can make it difficult to link the actions of agencies and programs clearly with outcomes Performance-based government strives to build such connections within the context of U.S democratic systems, but the “multiple bottom lines” of government make such clarity difficult, if not impossible, to achieve – or to achieve in the same way that private firms can Nonprofit organizations face an environment characterized by funding concerns and cycles, volunteers, and adherence to values and missions that at times threaten survival and effectiveness The growth of the nonprofit sector during the past decade or so in United States society has led to a burgeoning research area in a sector that remains less well understood than the public or private sectors Increasingly, government decisionmakers work across the three sectors as well as across federal, state, and local levels of government to accomplish goals (Kamarck and Nye, 2002) In doing so, they face a more complex environment than implied by models that are exclusively market-oriented or restricted to formal government organizations Rationale The chief impediments to digital government are not technical, but social, organizational, and institutional The potential of digital communication and information processing exceeds the capacity of social actors and social systems to exploit that potential An imbalance in funding toward technical projects rather than social research fosters new technologies more rapidly than the current absorption rate of the government or most complex organizations and institutions (President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, 1999) Greater attention to social and policy research not only would enhance the absorption rate of technology but also better illuminate for technical specialists the environment in which their technologies will be implemented and used Institutional Change The fundamental restructuring of government from bureaucratic structures joined through oversight bureaucracies and Congress to greater use of horizontal arrangements using, at times, less formal governance mechanisms, market mechanisms, and temporary configurations, signals an emergent change in the structure of the state and policymaking capacity (Fountain, 2001) To date, there are few normative studies or theories to guide such restructuring Social scientists concerned with institutions have examined state structure and capacity and the role of policymakers in developing institutional capacity (Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol, 1985; Heclo, 1974; March and Olsen, 1989; Powell and DiMaggio, 1991) Yet most work within this stream of research predates the use of distributed information systems and the Internet and remains virtually untapped as a source of insight into the development and implications of digital government American government has begun the process of institutional and agency change necessary to exploit the benefits of information technologies in a democratic society Many agencies, particularly at the state and local levels of government, are just beginning to develop web-based services to citizens and other web-enabled structures (Fountain and Osorio-Urzua, 2001; La Porte, Demchak, and Friis, 2001; West, 2001) As of 2000 there were approximately 27 federal interagency websites Under the Bush Administration, a concerted effort at rationalization and standardization of architectures, tools, applications, and systems has been launched Moreover, institutional leadership and expertise finally is in place within OMB and, increasingly, in agencies to lead and manage an initiative of such immense scale, scope and complexity At the same time, concerns regarding ownership and use of government information, privacy, security, the meaning and obligations of citizenship, civic engagement, accountability, privatization, and other practical issues of government have come to the fore as information technologies and their use bring about unanticipated consequences and challenges (Kamarck and Nye, 1999; Norris, 2001) Yet little applied research has examined such fundamental changes and their implications A Systematic Approach to Research These fundamental shifts in governance call for a more theoretically informed, systematic approach to digital government research than currently exists The importance of research that considers the interrelationship between technical and non-technical variables points to need for multidisciplinary studies as well as those that fall mainly within the disciplines and related applied fields The urgent need for homeland security that is effective yet democratic heightens the salience and timeliness of research at the intersection of information technology, governance, and organizations Digital government has the potential to greatly contribute to security, privacy, and interagency coordination through modernization of information gathering and analysis Pattern recognition and filtering systems can serve as powerful “early warning” of potential attacks by non-governmental, geographically distributed actors Researchers who work on privacy and security would benefit from the opportunity to consider these issues within the broader policy context of contemporary American government in which market mechanisms have become predominant and in which funds for government activities are shrinking The central challenge of information technology use in large complex social systems has always been to balance its unparalleled potential for surveillance and control with its equally powerful ability to foster liberty and freedom through knowledge (Zuboff, 1988) Institutional Infrastructure to Support Research The Digital Government Program within the Computer, Information Science, and Engineering Directorate at the National Science Foundation has developed a highly productive framework to catalyze social learning that grounds research in the practical issues facing government decisionmakers The Digital Government Program approach links government agencies with researchers as co-designers and co-producers of research Federal agencies, as well as other government bodies, co-sponsor research initiatives, thus leveraging National Science Foundation resources The early emphasis of the Digital Government Program was primarily on supporting cutting edge technological developments to advance digital government infrastructure, systems, and tools Among these are geographical information systems; data collection, integration, visualization, retrieval, storage, and search technologies; and multimedia systems The Digital Government Program has supported research on a small number of social policy and government issues that have been closely associated with digital government; including universal access and the digital divide, privacy and security, electronic voting and intergovernmental cooperation Related efforts, more broadly focused, include the NSF Information Technology Research initiative which was established following the release of a major report by the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), which called for substantial national investment in research on the social, behavioral, and economic implications of the Internet Although falling broadly under the purview signaled in the PITAC report, digital government research comprises a distinctive domain along several dimensions These dimensions map to the distinctions between the public and private sectors in governance processes, the use of markets and incentives, responsibilities to the public and the polity, and more For this reason and others, the NSF Digital Government Program, now in its fourth year, was initiated originally within the CISE Directorate to catalyze the diffusion of technological innovation to government and to support the development of technologies and applications with specific value to government organizations and actors The Digital Government Program established the National Conference on Digital Government Research in 2000 It convenes the Digital Government Program’s growing network of grantees and guests at an annual research conference The conference program and proceedings include an increasing number of research projects focused on organizational and public management topics The initial Digital Government Program workshop that addressed public management issues at the intersection of technology, organizations, people, and governance was carried out under grant no 99-181 by the Center for Technology in Government, based at the University at Albany, State University of New York More recently, the Digital Government Program sponsored a national workshop on Internet voting, which took up some of the social science questions related to potential implementations and impacts of Internet voting Finally, the Digital Government Program sponsored a study by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) on the contribution IT research might make to increasing the effectiveness of government operations and activities.3 Recent initiatives by the Social Science Research Council support the importance of a research agenda located at the intersection of social and technological phenomena and their interdependence The Internet Summit, sponsored by the Social Science Research Council and the National Science Foundation to inform a major NSFsponsored research program led by John Robinson, University of Maryland, Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University and W Russell Neuman, University of Southern California, convened in the spring of 2001 The Internet Summit issued an internal report recommending research topics including the digital divide and broader issues of inequality; organizational design and change; and questions of conflict, community, and forms of sociability Recommendations also included a call for institutional development, training programs, and, more generally, field building The results are available in the report, “Some Assembly Required: Building a Digital Government for the 21 st Century,” Center for Technology and Government, State University of New York, Albany The report is available at http://www.internetpolicy.org/research/e_voting_report.pdf This study, “Information Technology, Research, Innovation, and E-Government,” was published by the National Academy of Sciences in 2002 It can be read online at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309084016/html/ Similarly, the Social Science Research Council developed the Program on Information Technology, International Cooperation, and Global Security (ITIC) with a broad agenda to extend and invigorate the fields related to international relations and international political economy The ITIC Program provides opportunities for sponsored doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships and has organized a summer institute to strengthen the community of researchers engaged in ITIC research The extension of the NSF Digital Government Program to support research on the social, organizational, and governance impacts of digital government, in addition to its ongoing support of technical research, is necessary to build a foundation for digital government research and to strengthen government practice The 2002 workshop, organized by the National Center for Digital Government at Harvard University, sought to fill gaps in preceding efforts by explicitly linking digital government research more closely to the social and applied social sciences CRITICAL RESEARCH ISSUES A set of critical topics in the social and applied social sciences outline the strategic focus for a digital government research agenda focused at the intersection of IT, organization, and governance Recommendations for the four major categories of a research program are briefly summarized here and developed in greater detail below: Strategic Area 1: Information Technologies, Governance and Organizations Central research questions at the intersection of technology, organization, and governance include the following: • • • • • • How does IT interact with the structure and processes of government organizations? How institutional structures such as oversight, the budget process, or legislation affect the development of networked forms of governance? How are government managers and policy makers using IT to develop new organizational forms or to modify existing forms? What are the impacts of IT on intersectoral, intergovernmental and interagency coordination and collaboration? How can intergovernmental and interagency coordination and collaboration be enhanced with IT? What policy and political processes influence data integration and standards? How they so? Applied research would examine practical, problem-based questions related to the topics above and would examine strategic, operational, and other management issues related to the implementation, use, and evaluation of IT in government High priority issues encompass critical elements of government performance, including effectiveness, efficiency, accountability, access, responsiveness to citizens, federalism, and capacity for learning and innovation Strategic Area 2: Digital Government and its Stakeholders Empirical research on the users of digital government is a central priority given wide speculation and market surveys regarding digital democracy and citizen demand for online information and services Specific research questions include: • • • • How citizens actually use online government information and services? Given the evidence for a digital divide not only in access to hardware and telecommunications but also in the ability to navigate, search and query in an online environment, how might this digital divide be addressed? How are interest groups and civic associations using the web? What are the key emergent changes that might be empirically identified and described in civic engagement? http://www.ssrc.org/programs/itic In addition to research on users, key stakeholders requiring further research include a variety of actors who play distinctive roles in the design, development and implementation of digital government tools, applications, and systems Strategic Area 3: Change, Transformation, and Co-evolution The process of change requires research separate from the topics above in order to focus specifically on the transformative processes that lie between inputs and outcomes This category includes: • • • The antecedents and consequences of specific change processes, catalysts and incentives for change Models of emergence and network development from complexity theory Extension and application of current theories of co-evolution, technology adoption, technology transfer, knowledge diffusion, and innovation to digital government Strategic Area 4: Systematic Research Design Stronger research design using the perspectives and conceptual frameworks of social science is likely to lead to research results of greater validity and reliability, findings of broader generalizability, and – perhaps most important – accretion of sound research findings A basic research agenda should include not only problem-based research but also research that draws from and, in turn, refines and extends central social science theories and perspectives Without systematic research design, findings and methods fail to accumulate and to produce a base upon which researchers can build A basic research agenda should: • • • Include a portfolio approach to investments in research that combines short-, medium- and long-range projects Leverage the utility of comparative research Employ a variety of approaches, methods, and theoretical perspectives Objectives of a Research Program Government has long supported research and development of information technologies But to advance beyond technological research and development to digital government requires a substantial and serious investment in organizational, social, and governmental research Technologies are designed, adopted, implemented, and used in a particular environment within government The interdependent relationships among technology, organizations, and governance and their strategic implications remain poorly understood by researchers and government decisionmakers (Fountain, 2001) Thus, a critical gap in knowledge and practical skills required to influence digital government will be filled by this research agenda A stronger research agenda should result in substantial improvements in requirements gathering as government decisionmakers and managers work with their supply chain partners to design, develop, and implement IT systems Strengthened national research capacity should extend the focus of decisionmakers beyond the indisputably important but partial engineering focus on “faster, better, and cheaper” results to fundamental governance and organizational issues including jurisdiction, interagency arrangements, accountability, and collaboration Research on agency structure and processes, or citizen needs and preferences, will inform the development of digital government by improving political, policy, and management decisionmaking The expected results of these improvements in decisionmaking will in turn yield positive benefits for democracy by furthering equality, access, civic engagement, citizenship, and public service In sum, a basic research program similar to that outlined in this report is likely to yield: • A powerful knowledge base to provide greater understanding of the interdependence among IT, organization, and governance for researchers, decisionmakers and IT developers It is often difficult for developers to appreciate the legal, political, and democratic questions embedded in design decisions Therefore, research design and projects which bring together social and technical scientists may assist in bridging the gap between specialized knowledge of governance, democracy, complex organizations, and politics and that of information and computer scientists and analysts To note one example, little systematic examination of the implications of the use of cookies by government actors has been undertaken, yet cookies are becoming prevalent on government websites There are fundamental differences in using cookies in the private versus the public sector in that public sector use of such tools raises privacy issues because the U.S Constitution comes into play There needs to be a better dialogue between public administration theorists, constitutional law theorists, and digital government developers regarding this, and many other, system design and development issues • Research results and understanding to build more effective digital government that is responsive to citizens in terms of accuracy, speed, convenience, cost, and access; democratic in its structures and processes; and secure and reliable • Practical insights, tools, and frameworks for government decisionmakers and those charged with building and managing in digital government Strategic area 1: Information Technology, Governance and Organization Three distinct, but inter-related, levels of analysis order key research issues in IT and the organization of government First, internal agency organizational issues are of central concern, aimed at improving the performance of government agencies or programs using digital technologies (e.g., Gupta, Dirsmith, and Fogarty, 1994; Heintze and Bretschneider, 2000; Kogut and Zander, 1992) Second, an important focus of research concentrates specifically on boundaries and interfaces, including the boundaries that lie between functional areas within agencies, boundaries between agencies or organizations, and boundaries between government and citizens (e.g., Ancona and Caldwell, 1992; Goes and Park, 1997; Hansen, 1999; Ibarra, 1993; Stevenson and Gilly, 1991) Similarly, human-computer interfaces may be thought of as boundaries that distinguish two entities or as the system of rules that joins entities across boundaries Research on the human-computer interface is well established Human-computer interfaces, such as client service management interfaces, involve a complex ecology of digital, human, organizational, and governance elements The relationship of boundaries and interfaces to the organizations, networks, and government of which they are a part is an essential area for research Third, increase in networked governance and the myriad issues raised by networks obligates a digital government research program to foster research that will improve understanding and control of networks Like interfaces, networks should be conceptualized in socio-technical terms as complex ecologies of social, digital, and organizational systems (e.g., Ahuja and Carley, 1999; Manev, 2001; Monge and Contractor, 2002; Wellman et al., 1996) A series of cross-cutting topics flow through the three levels of analysis and pose distinct questions for a research agenda This report focuses on a partial list of such issues and concentrates, in particular, on knowledge management and customer service because of their current salience in government Organizational Performance Issues Information technology interacts with organizations at two fundamental levels First, IT can be leveraged to improve current performance But at a second level, IT enables transformation, or substantial changes, in the form, structure, and processes in government (Schedler and Scharf, 2001).5 Thus, second-level change is not simply improvement of the status quo but movement to new equilibrium First-level research questions include: • • How can decisionmakers use technologies within organizations to enhance performance? How can a variety of information technologies – for example, video conferencing and smart cards – improve performance through their ability to track and assess information to improve decisionmaking? Research questions at the second level of impact include: • • How can technologies enable or lead to change in the structure of government functions, processes, and programs? How policymakers enact technology through the use of institutionalized behaviors? A digital government research program cuts across major business processes and policy domains It should include research on processes, policy areas, change forces and complexity of interaction among these categories The major processes spanning agencies and departments that guide development of integrated information systems include the following: operations, services, access (including privacy and security), licensing, enforcement, policymaking (including rulemaking, law making, and budgeting), grants and benefits, and customer service Key policy areas include: national security, commerce, education, natural resources, agriculture, transportation, health and human services, economic and community development, justice and public safety finance, infrastructure Knowledge Management Knowledge is deeply embedded in the individuals and processes of organizations (see e.g., Blau, 1963; Cyert and March, 1963; Simon, 1997; Zuboff, 1988) Government organizations are not exceptional in this regard New technologies make it possible to communicate across decentralized government units and across time However, the processing of data into information and, in turn, into knowledge (and the reverse) can lead to massive loss of content and context (Cross, Parker, Prusak, and Borgatti, 2001; Roberts, 2000) The implications of these translations and associated attrition of content and context for decisionmaking, organizational learning, and policy making remain poorly understood As the use of databases in government has increased, distinctions between information and knowledge – and the timeliness, relevance, and importance of each – have grown in importance The relative importance and uses of human versus automated information and knowledge require basic research if knowledge management systems are to be designed intelligently and used effectively To note one example: Some proponents of knowledge management assume that information in databases replaces information transfer among social actors (e.g., Borghoff and Pareschi, 1998) In other words, organizational actors can retrieve knowledge online rather than from other people However, research findings suggest strongly that people who contribute information to a database tend to be in greater demand by others in the social network for advice and knowledge From a social perspective, those who contribute heavily to databases are engaged in signaling their expertise to others in a social community of practice (Orlikowski and Yates, 1994) This phenomenon is at work dramatically in the Open Source programming movement in which people volunteer their time and contribute programs (see Schweik and Grove, 2002 for research on open source systems) One major motivation for actors to contribute their time voluntarily stems from enhancements to social status and employment opportunities that result from being part of a social network as an expert The social aspects of knowledge production and management imply the need for research on social relationships within and across organizations to complement a strict focus on technological solutions to knowledge challenges (Barley, 1990; McDermott, 1999) Regarding counterintuitive relationships between perceptions of red tape and IT innovativeness, see Moon and Bretschneider (2002) Knowledge transfer involves translation of the internal categories used by people and institutions to organize information in shared databases The “category problem” is an important cognitive and social issue to address if government is to develop large, centralized, searchable and accessible IT-driven databases of information Disincentives to knowledge sharing in the public sector inhibit the development of cross-boundary systems whether technical or social It is difficult for public sector decisionmakers to use knowledge management tools because of strong disincentives to knowledge sharing across programs, departments, agencies, and levels of government Whereas it is assumed that private sector firms use knowledge management as a source of competitive advantage, the incentives that currently operate in most governments work against information sharing It may be that studies of project-based organizations – those in which employees from different functional specialties are organized around specific projects – would yield insights into incentive structures that reward cross-boundary communication and information sharing, and whose features might translate to some government settings Overall, systematic research is needed to clearly identify and analyze impediments and incentives to knowledge sharing in government and to develop potential solutions that are not merely technical in nature but organizationally and politically feasible It will be necessary to modify incentives in government to promote knowledge management across traditional boundaries Increasingly, knowledge management in government crosses the boundaries of sovereign nations Promising solutions for governmental problems are found in a variety of governments Tools to promote knowledge transfer and dissemination should be designed with international usage in mind Increasing Government Responsiveness The development of e-government has co-evolved with a major government reform effort that emphasizes customer service or greater responsiveness by government to citizens For the past decade, government managers have focused on technological, cultural and business process redesign to develop operations that are not simply more efficient, but more responsive to citizens (For an example drawn from the Small Business Administration, see Van Wert, 2002) Typical improvements to operations include increasing access, information, courtesy, and flexibility The goal of responsiveness contrasts with traditional government foci of efficiency and standardization (For potential exceptions to the tradeoff between responsiveness, efficiency, and accountability through the use of IT, see DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, and Robinson, 2001.) Yet the methods and mindset needed to design operations and systems from the perspective of the citizen, or user, are not well integrated into agency decisionmaking patterns and cultures The design and development of interagency operations and systems compound the challenge because these arrangements must be responsive to several different customer segments or client populations The development of interagency web portals – for example, fedstats.gov, students.gov, seniors.gov, and business.gov – is one example of this class of problem (Fountain, 2001; Fountain and OsorioUrzua, 2001) Research that translates “best practice” from private sector customer service operations to government agencies would aid knowledge dissemination and technology transfer across sectoral boundaries In particular, government decision makers need to understand the trade-offs between responsive service provision and cost control These trade-offs are currently “hidden” in government because no direct pricing mechanisms exist for most services to citizens Workshop participants did not recommend or suggest that government services should be fee-based The point is that it is more difficult for government managers to establish the break-even point for responsiveness versus costs in the absence of key variables used by firms, notably the cost of services to targeted customer segments Online customer service introduces new challenges to cost-benefit analysis Moreover, the development of digital government does not eliminate traditional channels; it requires management of multiple and parallel channels – face-to-face, telephone, and online – for customer service operations making the problem of cost-benefit analysis even more complex for government Other key research topics regarding customer service in digital government include: information gathering and data collection to understand citizen needs and preferences, the role of cross-functional design in the creation of single points of contact for citizens, and the use of cross-sectoral (public, private, and nonprofit) partnerships to develop and manage complex customer relationship systems in government Partnership with private and 10 communication? Or has electronic communication simply strengthened existing structures of influence? Such questions extend central social science topics, such as cognition, power, and organization to account for technological variables Political science and political sociology scholars have developed powerful theories and rich veins of research regarding civic associations, their development, maintenance, and roles (Skocpol and Fiorina, 1999) As the use of IT is woven into the fabric of civic life and the behavior of interest groups, theories that account for technology and its enactment by these groups gain in importance Citizens have special requirements for trust and accountability in their relationship to e-government First, they must be able to trust in the fairness and universalism of government Second, citizens seek systems that sustain their trust through reliable and secure provision of government information and services New technologies necessary for adequate identification and authentication raise questions of citizen privacy and security in a democracy For example, current attention to the use of social security numbers as a unique identifier throughout government and society points to the difficulties of managing the organizational and technical processes required to maintain trust and accountability The digital divide typically refers to inequality of access to hardware and telecommunications by the poor Digital government initiatives should not exclude those government agencies located in poor states Nor should it exclude those communities that not have the telecommunications, hardware, software, or staff to modernize their information infrastructure Digital government initiatives may need to have resource components to allocate resources to poorer governments Some states, such as Texas and Colorado, have taken an aggressive approach to ensuring equal access to telecommunications and IT resources for rural communities It is essential to ensure that digital government does not exacerbate existing inequalities In addition to gaps in access to hardware, a significant skills gap exists in the population Research indicates that citizens vary widely in their ability to use technologies and in the level of social support available to remedy these deficiencies (Norris, 2001) The skills gap suggests that equality of participation in online government processes requires design that ensures access by those with little technological experience Information placed by government on e-government websites must be easy for an average user to locate and understand and locate For example, many users have difficulty accessing political information or using the Internal Revenue Service website to obtain tax information The users of e-government span the entire polity ranging across class, race, region, age, and disabilities Inequality of access suggests the importance of design that makes government information and services accessible Research is needed on existing inequality and means to minimize disparities in access to egovernment Key Roles in Design, Development and Decisionmaking There is a striking absence of empirical studies that examine the behavior of developers and government users of IT Developers include the entire supply chain involved in the design, development, and deployment of digital government: public and private sector designers, planners, systems developers and those responsible for budgets and appropriations, policy, rulemaking, procedures, and systems The respective roles, impact, and influence of these actors and the ways in which they interact to produce e-government constitute a key area for research Both descriptive and prescriptive research is needed on the role of business in the development and operation of digital government The market for e-government, the size of government contracts, and the sunk costs involved when large-scale systems are built point to the need for unbiased, systematic policy research The latter issue implies research questions for the fields of business-government relations, public management, political sociology and political economy Other key roles in the development of digital government are those of public servants acting as innovator, boundary spanner, risk taker and entrepreneur Public servants are charged with more than efficiency enhancements; they are responsible for the creation of public value as they develop e-government (Moore, 1995; Osorio-Urzua, 2002) A central challenge for government is the fostering of these roles in an environment that must be conservative with respect to change and risk in order to guard the public interest Research topics include knowledge transfer of existing research on innovation and entrepreneurship to the domain of digital government 16 and case study research analyzing successful innovation and entrepreneurship in government agencies in order to identify the antecedents and conditions that foster success Similarly, research is needed on the ways in which public managers are using IT to affect their policy environment and, in turn, the effects of such changes on the policymaking process The mental models shared within professional communities define and structure professional roles (Steckler, 2002) Mental models include assumptions, vocabulary, value determinations, operating rules, and standardized procedures for a range of professional behaviors One of the challenges for organizational change required to leverage new IT includes modification of mental models that work against the productive development of digital government But such models are often difficult to recognize and articulate and, hence, difficult to change Research on the complementarities and disjunction among the mental models of technical experts, policy experts, and other types of decisionmakers holds promise for illuminating key elements of organizational change Political Roles Decisionmakers with significant influence over the shape of digital government include elected and appointed officials and their staffs An elementary question to which no clear evidence has yet been collected is: What organizations or which groups are enabling e-government or furthering its development? Elected officials and their staffs make critical decisions regarding digital government, yet little research has examined the information sources used by decisionmakers or their role in the development of digital government Legislative staff play a critical role in digital government decisionmaking, yet it is difficult for most staff to understand and convert the information they receive regarding technology issues into policy A constellation of actors – including career civil servants, elected officials and their staff, lobbyists, interest groups, and vendors – are shaping the contours of digital government (To note one extended analysis of these roles in state governments, see Rethemeyer, 2002a; 2002b.) For example, H&R Block, a financial products and services firm well known for tax preparation services, developed the architecture for online tax filing The sunk costs involved in wide use of their system have influenced government decisionmaking and the architecture of online tax filing From one perspective, this form of public-private interdependence may be viewed as an example of gains to government from innovative business practice From a different perspective, one might conclude that key decisions regarding enterprise architecture for one of the most basic transactions in government, filing taxes, has been pre-empted by decisionmakers without legitimate authority In sum, political and governance issues related to technology transfer and diffusion of innovation across public, private, and nonprofit sector boundaries is a significant and pressing area for research Design to Strengthen Democracy Early e-government projects sought to provide citizens with web-based government information and services However, as the implications of networked governance become clearer, designers might develop digital and egovernment systems that encourage civic participation in ways that strengthen democracy For example, it is technically possible to increase the frequency and use of referenda voting However, this may not result in an improvement to American democracy It is technically possible for citizens to email their elected representatives But there is as yet insufficient capacity to respond to this volume of electronic communication Insufficient response by elected officials may exacerbate perceptions of government inadequacy Research issues at the intersection of IT, politics, and governance abound The following are a small sample of significant, pressing questions: • How would citizens who interact with government primarily through intentions-based portals learn and understand how government works? 17 • • • • • • • What is the responsibility of digital government designers (whether elected officials or other decisionmakers) to ensure that citizens understand the governance behind the seamless interfaces increasingly available online? How might government and governance be made more transparent through the use of technology? As access to elected, appointed, and career officials increases through electronic mail and interactive websites, how are policymakers integrating information received via the Internet in contrast to influence attempts made through other channels? Given that digital government makes direct democracy, in particular referendum voting, less costly, is the development of digital government leading to systems that are technically feasible but socially suboptimal? What impact is the development of digital government likely to have on jurisdictions and political boundaries? To what extent does the web and availability of visual and mapping information through geographic information systems affect citizen or decisionmakers’ perceptions of appropriate jurisdictional boundaries? How should decisionmakers balance questions of access with the need for security? Empirical research is critical to gain a clearer understanding of what citizens want from e-government, and how e-government initiatives can improve or enhance citizen engagement in the provision of public goods It may be that citizens value increased possibilities for participation as much as faster, smoother transactions with government For example, citizens may wish to interact with state or local government units before contacting a federal agency Outcomes related to governance and citizenship differ from outcomes stated simply in terms of transaction cost reductions, efficiency, and speed STRATEGIC AREA 3: CHANGE, TRANSFORMATION, AND CO-EVOLUTION Technology is a catalyst for social, economic, and political change at the levels of the individual, group, organization, and institution Each technological and related change evolves in its own sphere, but it does not evolve alone Technological and social changes co-evolve (Bach and Stark, 2002; Neff and Stark, 2003) New technologies generate learning and new expectations which, in turn, stimulate further technological change (Epple, Argote, and Devadas, 1991) Thus, research is needed that captures co-evolutionary processes involved in learning and transformation using models in which preferences and interests evolve over time and are treated endogenously Elements of a research agenda might include mapping evolutionary ideas with regard to IT and governance into entities that tend to co-exist and co-evolve in systematic ways Relevant bodies of theory upon which to draw include social network theory, evolutionary theory, and perspectives on complex adaptive systems Concomitantly, each of these bodies of theory is associated with tools and methods for research design and analysis The Two Systems Problem Agencies building online capacity must manage investments in new capabilities while maintaining existing production and distribution channels This dilemma is known as the “two systems problem.” United States governments are likely to become providers of information and services across multiple channels, each of which possesses separate technical, functional, and operational requirements Current private sector best practice indicates that firms engaged in e-commerce also operate effective telephone, mail, and face-to-face channels 18 Indeed, e-commerce has led to increased use of call centers for customers to clarify and supplement online information The dominant modality may be the telephone used in combination with websites rather than websites used for self-service The dynamics of co-evolution, in terms of systems, requires research on costs, access, and service It is important for a digital government research program to identify and articulate more clearly than presently available differences between the public and private sectors in terms of performance metrics, return on investment, requirements for equity and access, and feasible methods of adaptation to change A series of related issues provide further detail to the two systems problem in government Most government information remains organized in analog format even as agencies have sought to build enterprise architectures Files have traditionally been organized, stored, and archived in file cabinets and boxes Documents have been paper based Increasingly, information is being transferred to a digital format Yet in most locations, files are organized and stored in both formats It is not yet known whether both analog and digital systems are necessary (For further discussion of this issue, see Schweik and Grove, 2002.) Many agencies hesitate to expend limited resources simply to digitize documents Research is needed on transition strategies, costs and benefits of transition, risk assessment, and incentives to overcome bureaucratic inertia Research on the politics of technology implementation is also needed Interest group politics in the United States means that new ideas and technologies require political support in order to move forward Political power and the analysis of power and politics cannot be separated from the study of digital government, its development, and impacts Technical questions are often decided by political actors Technical specialists often make decisions of political importance, such as those regarding design criteria that affect access, reliability, and cost Recently, the U.S Office of Management and Budget E-government Working Group, under the direction of Mark Forman, initiated a “best practice” group whose task is to search for, identify, and promote transfer of “best practice” from business to government Such benchmarking is valuable for practitioners Associated systematic research would aid understanding of technology transfer and could strengthen it Research in this area should employ descriptive approaches as well as longitudinal, quantitative analysis of adoption and diffusion patterns using time-series techniques Incentives for Change The incentives to build digital government must be aligned with citizen preferences Citizen preferences should provide the basis on which partially to structure outputs for which incentives would be devised Private sector firms, including those that develop and sell digital government tools and services, conduct market analysis Government agencies must assess a broader range of views than the preferences of direct clients for services and information if they are to serve the public interest Private firms identify markets that can pay for services and products Government agencies must provide products and services to all citizens without regard for financial or political leverage The equity issues central to democratic governance raise a set of ethical questions and potential conflicts of interest in the development of digital and electronic government as the boundaries between public and private sector decisionmaking and management become increasingly interdependent Public and private sector organizations possess fundamentally different incentives for decisions Incentives extend beyond those in markets to include rewards and penalties within political and bureaucratic processes The “best practices” circulated in a policy domain provide information and incentives for decisionmakers to imitate Attention by highly visible agencies, like the National Science Foundation, and by university researchers to key research “hotspots,” can provide visibility and support for innovative projects and programs and, in turn, create incentives for others to follow An understanding of incentives and their use is at the core of research on change and transformation Markets create incentives, and government can create markets and incentives For example, the Environmental Protection Agency created a market for clean air by designing instruments, such as tradable permits, that firm decisionmakers use to make rational choices regarding acceptable levels of pollution according to a pricing structure within a market Government has the potential to create incentives to encourage or discourage innovation, cross-agency collaboration and system-building, and a variety of behaviors designed to strengthen development of digital government 19 STRATEGIC AREA 4: SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH DESIGN Technologytype Theoryor functional mgmt area (org.structure, process) A basic research program for digital government must provide a foundation so that findings accrete over time A foundation on which researchers can build, therefore, requires more systematic attention to research design Researchers and practitioners should be able to locate their particular proposal or problem within a matrix whose dimensions delineate the problem space of digital government research Such a matrix is outlined and explained below The dimensions of the matrix include problem or performance criterion on the x-axis; technology on the yaxis; and theory or, in the case of problem-based research, functional management area on the z-axis Each dimension is analytically distinct but, in practice, the dimensions are highly interdependent Systematic research design located within a space that could be conveyed clearly to other researchers and practitioners would foster a portfolio approach to research, clearer identification of gaps in digital government research, stronger accretion of research results, and improved development of a community of researchers Problemor performancecriteria (outcome) Figure 1: A Matrix for Research Design in Digital Government Technology Information technologies (IT) vary extensively from desktop computing to geographical information systems to wireless systems and nanotechnology In fact, ecologies – or coherent systems of several technologies are in use in government It is insufficient for social scientists and public management experts merely to conduct research on “information technology.” Different technologies, systems, and applications vary in their characteristics and effects Yet little classification is found in social science research at the intersection of IT and The three-dimensional representation is a simplification; several more dimensions are important and flagged in this paragraph 20 complex organizations This is an area in which partnerships between information and social scientists might advance precision in terminology and conceptual apparatus Thus, a key recommendation is to define “information technology” with more precision in social science and management research and to begin to classify research projects more precisely with respect to the technologies studied Technology Fit with Government Needs Technology to be deployed in digital government must be appropriate to agency needs and priorities if it is to be effective Technologies should be designed and developed to support government mission and objectives rather than modifying program objectives to align with technologies Government decisionmakers require tools and expertise to evaluate the match between their strategic needs and available technologies Workshop participants called for research on the role of private sector firms and their role as providers of suitable technologies for government Communities of practice across sectors may be a fruitful source of practical design To note one example, customer relationship management implies managers determine desired outcomes using input from customers and, using customer information, work backward to identify key information needs and the development of standards and interfaces In sum, key research questions include: Is an architecture or application appropriate for an agency to address high priority challenges? How should agencies evaluate fit? Who evaluates fit? The Bush administration has launched twenty-four key IT initiatives in the federal government to build cross-agency enterprise architectures and systems A key assumption of the initiative is that the development of enterprise architectures and systems will transform governance Research is needed on specific applications of enterprise architecture that might serve as catalysts and enablers of tools for transformation Government decisionmakers require systematic understanding of the collection, dissemination, and use of information across government agencies to design and develop cross-agency enterprise architecture It is critical for research to analyze and describe information requirements and the technical infrastructure required to advance an enterprise strategy Preparing for Future Technologies Most social science research on technology, organizations, and government focuses on technologies that are currently available and in use A basic research program should also “future-proof” government information systems to the extent possible by forecasting emerging technologies and by providing studies and results on nearterm advances and their likely governance impact The NSF Digital Government Program typically funds work well beyond currently available technologies Thus, it may help move the orientation of social science research outward in time as well Studies that illuminate the present and future by examining past technology may also deepen the research agenda For example, there may be no significant difference between the move from email “documents” to instant messaging and the experience during the mainframe era in which many organizations used both email and messaging An orientation toward the future may obscure important lessons retrievable from the past To note another example: the Internet and World Wide Web as storage and delivery mechanisms are likely to be replaced, at least partially, by wireless technologies and text messaging, which are increasing in use Documents may become less important as messages, including instant messaging, become more important for several types of communication and interaction These trends have implications for the architecture of information delivery as well as a host of governance questions including those related to accountability, preserving, archiving, and the form and content of public information 21 Theory or Functional Management Area The z-axis on the matrix portrayed above indicates the theory that is to be tested in a study This dimension also includes functional management areas to account for research focused on a management problem rather than development of theory In both cases, equal rigor is required for the development of inferences, the objective of research A wide range of important and equally scientific methods should be employed in a research program that deals with complex, dynamic, and disjunctive technologies in equally complex, dynamic and rich social settings A research agenda for digital government requires a portfolio of disciplines and practical fields, theoretical approaches, and research methods Useful models and analytical frameworks of three types would strengthen the basic research program: Explanatory (predictive); Descriptive; and Normative (prescriptive) A range of theories from the social and applied social sciences are relevant to digital government research, including theories of accountability; institutional design and behavior; the social behavior of individuals, groups, and organizations; bureaucracy; and democracy A broad literature on scientific inquiry, research methods, and knowledge generation is available to researchers Those features of research design of particular importance for building a basic research program for digital government are noted here Theories range in scope from medium-range, practical accounts of systematic relationships to abstract, general accounts of, for example, liberty, justice, and equality The level of generality at which a researcher poses questions varies greatly Political scientists, to note one example, often espouse theories of the middle range, or relationships among variables of concern that shed light on classes of fairly well defined practical issues Examples include theories of interest group activity, formation of international organizations, and technology enactment More general, abstract theory is probably pitched at too high a level for use in a research program on digital government At the broad, abstract level are general theories of, for example, social behavior, markets, and hierarchies At the other end of the continuum lie more narrowly focused theories – or accounts of the relationship among a set of variables under certain boundary conditions –for example, the facilitators of interagency collaboration in democratic governments or the optimum means of budget preparation using the web Scholarly social science research utilizes both deductive and inductive methods Deductive research typically begins with theory and deduces from it a set of propositions to be tested in an empirical setting In the case of deductive research, the researcher takes theory as a starting point and finds a setting, or a set of conditions, in which to refine or test theory Research questions are deduced from theory Researchers use an inductive approach when theory to explain or predict a particular phenomenon either is not well developed or when a researcher assumes that existing theory is incorrect or misspecified Inductive research begins with a problem or phenomenon and is used to generate a set of hypotheses that may then be tested in other settings In instances of problem-based research, the z-axis of the research design matrix represents structure and function, what applied management researchers call functional management areas Several specific structural, functional, and management challenges have been highlighted in this report, particularly under the first strategic area This subsection focuses on methodological and design issues In some cases, the development of theory has not kept pace with developments in organizational structure and function For example, emergent organizational structures that are temporary, project-based, and interjurisdictional fit poorly with traditional bureaucratic theory and are only partially explained in network theories Traditional communication or reporting functions in bureaucracies are undergoing transformation in environments in which real-time, networked communications and data sharing are becoming the norm In this case, also, theory lags behind current and emergent phenomena For this reason, the z-axis includes structure and function as well as theory Rigorous Problem-Based Research 22 Problems and performance outcomes (criteria) lie along the x-axis of the research design matrix One promising avenue for generating generalizable, cumulative research that is also problem-based is case-based, scholarly research Researchers in this case focus on particular problems or challenges faced by government decisionmakers rather than testing theory Most practical problems in government exhibit multiple, complex characteristics that cut across theoretical approaches, well defined streams of research, and structural elements of organizations or functional management areas Gaining purchase on such problems demands an approach to research that is rigorous and systematic, but outside the traditional scientific method of deductive research on artificially bounded research problems Researchers might identify particular loci or occurrences of a definable problem in a government agency or in multiple agencies The problem would be described in terms of functional management areas Comparisons across multiple empirical sites would be an improvement over single case studies and allow for greater generalizability of findings Proposals for problem-based research would include a statement of a problem that is practical, sufficiently broad to yield generalizable findings of importance, and likely to result in findings from which evaluation criteria can be derived Examples of high priority, multi-dimensional problems that lend themselves to an inductive research approach include: Data sharing This topic encompasses a number of critically important issues: confidentiality, privacy, legal barriers to sharing data, organizational barriers, incommensurate definitions or categories, difficulties of standardizing measurement or classification, political pressures and sensitivities, citizen distrust of government leading to pressures to promise confidentiality Development of data systems to serve multiple functions within organizations Integration of internal and external needs for data is required, so that databases are organized to serve managers, workers, and clients Can data for continuous improvement emerge from budget/accounting/operational data? What are the technical and organizational challenges to achieving this integration? Exploiting new opportunities for government/citizen interaction The above problems generally related to the production of government outcomes However, e-government can also enable government to be more open with citizens and responsive to citizen input Issues include new channels of communication from government out to constituents, and, in the opposite direction, from citizens in to government, data availability for concerns citizens have, data usability to citizens of differing levels of knowledge and skill, access to IT among citizens and equity of access so that citizens can participate in e-government, assessing the risks and disadvantages of increased citizen input as well as the advantages Evaluating the impact of technology Participants discussed the importance of measuring costs, agency performance, productivity, human capital requirements, and one-time versus recurring costs or benefits Equity across different kinds and levels of government agencies Digital government initiatives should not exclude those government agencies located in poor states or local communities that cannot afford the hardware, software, or staff to modernize their IT Digital government initiatives may need to have resource components (as well as design and technical components) to allocate resources to poorer governments Opportunities to reallocate responsibilities across levels of government New IT creates the capability to decentralize some policy and program activities What are the data infrastructures and computing systems that enable decentralization through monitoring and feedback? Other issues include need for standard-setting, consistency of data input and availability, support for field units, empowerment of field units, design of incentives for higher levels of government to devolve responsibility to lower level units This process can happen within organizations as well as between organizations But the major policy significance of this aspect of digital government is devolution at a more macro policy level than decentralization within an agency Problem-based research, the norm in applied fields, typically takes as the dependent, or outcome, variable an important criterion of management or program performance Research results are expected to lead to performance improvements Criteria are multiple and interdependent and include accuracy, timeliness, reliability, responsiveness, or some other dimension of system performance The “system” here might denote an agency, program, process, or information system Practitioners at the workshop emphasized the need for researchers to remember who the “client” is Applied research serves both the academy and practitioners Research must be grounded in practical problems and current challenges if findings are to be relevant to the policymaking community Practitioners emphasized the importance 23 of ensuring that research is communicated to decisionmakers in government Decisionmakers often lack ready access to current research findings Moreover, elected officials and their staff make critical decisions regarding digital and electronic government Without strong ties to the digital government research community and its output, decisionmakers receive most of their information regarding new IT and their implications from lobbyists Workshop participants suggested compiling research into summaries and toolkits for distribution to governor’s offices, municipal entities, legislative staff and Congress Expanding Research Methods A powerful, robust research program should encompass a variety of methods Among those emphasized by the workshop participants were computer modeling, economic modeling, case study methodologies, network analysis, survey analysis, content analysis, transaction log analysis, and mapping techniques Participants concurred that the combination of quantitative analysis and qualitative fieldwork is particularly powerful for examining complex research questions in emerging fields of research A variety of comparative research strategies would strengthen capacity to understand and influence digital government First, systematic comparative research on public and private sector differences offer a window into differences in environment, context, incentives, reward systems, career paths, and a host of other critical building blocks for information-based organizations A stream of writing in public administration and management compares and contrasts the public and private sectors Given the ubiquity of computing in the state and economy, a resurgence in this stream is called for Within the United States, the 50 state governments, currently at various stages of development with respect to digital and e-government, present a ready source of rich comparison (State and local government websites, for example, are compared in West, 2001 Typically, innovations in government have begun at the state and local levels, primarily in response to environmental shifts and citizen demands These innovations then diffuse to the federal level It is not clear that this pattern is being replicated in the case of digital government A rich vein of theory and research on the diffusion of innovation, structural isomorphism, and technology adoption offer promising avenues for systematic research of benefit to government Increasingly, the work of government is conducted in the public and non-profit sectors Use of the Internet and web make sectoral boundaries even more amorphous and difficult to entangle Yet research on patterns of contracting, cost-benefit analyses, and the relationship of vendors to the fundamental developments in government would illuminate inter-sectoral relationship and the political economy of current transformation Finally, cross-national comparisons have become increasingly important as states seek to embed their cultures, values, and practices in web-based systems In addition to cross-national comparisons is the need for systematic research on the effect of the Internet and related IT on international and nongovernmental organizations, and on international relations generally Measurement and Evaluation Evaluation of the impact of technology on several dimensions of governance is a key element of the basic research agenda Systematic evaluation is particularly important in the face of pervasive hyperbole and marketing efforts in the digital government domain and, more generally, with respect to the Internet and its potential Absent strong capacity for unbiased evaluation, government decisionmakers lack information and analysis beyond that supplied by those who sell enterprise architectures and technologies Pervasive use of industry surveys and data, often of questionable validity and reliability, characterizes even scholarly research on IT and organizations In clearest terms, evaluation research should illuminate the type and extent of change attributable to IT use in government Evaluation research, based on systematic empirical analysis, is a chief requirement of the research agenda Moreover, measurement of risk is central to the management of large-scale IT projects Two elements of measurement are critical for a digital government research agenda Systematic research design includes careful selection, definition, operationalization, and measurement of independent and dependent 24 variables Research oriented toward practice will necessarily include performance measures or metrics which are, in fact, variables to be measured An indicator of the early stage of digital government research is the relative lack of well-defined variables and measures for use by researchers and practitioners One of the important contributions of a basic research is generation of concepts, conceptual frameworks, and variables (or measures) to describe and predict phenomena of interest A critical research area includes assessment of cost savings as the well as the true costs of development and implementation of digital government and e-government Among the elements of costs and savings of importance are quality, cycle time, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction Although transaction costs are relatively simple to measure, it is more complex to measure the costs and cost savings associated with agency transformation In fact, the likelihood that agency and program missions will change in response to changes in infrastructure and capacity means that the outcome variables will continue to change Measurements of change, transformation, and co-evolution are difficult to define and capture Measurement of events and problems that are prevented - or measuring the null set - is particularly difficult For example, how can researchers and evaluators measure the extent to which intelligence and enforcement agencies have used technology to prevent breaches of security? Among the more difficult metrics, how are outcomes such as social capital and collaboration measured? How does one measure whether the right information is shared across agencies as opposed to an overload of undifferentiated, unfiltered information? The Government Performance and Results Act and, more broadly, current emphasis on performance management has driven renewed interest in measurement, a key element of evaluation Similarly, agency report cards leverage the transparency that IT can help provide A query system that performs a cross-section comparison of similar programs, such as schools, and reports the results on the World Wide Web might help increase agency or program responsiveness and efficiency by leveraging information transparency and accessibility Performance metrics are many, complex, segmented and, ideally, outcome based Government is characterized by co-existing and conflicting bottom lines including equity, efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, and responsiveness Reasonable degrees of performance on all of these dimensions are expected and required CONCLUSIONS Recommendations for critical research topics, design, and methods have been enumerated throughout this report Four strategic areas categorize the central recommendations for a basic digital government research program that draws from and energizes the social and applied social sciences First, research on the relationship between IT and the structure and organization of governance is key to understanding and influencing the impacts of technology in government Second, empirical research is needed on the key stakeholders and users of digital government Citizens and civic associations form the central users of digital government The Digital Government Program might consider proposals in which civic associations are partners of scholarly researchers In addition, research is needed to illuminate and clarify the roles and relationships of those in the supply chain and political decisionmaking processes that produce digital government Third, digital government implies by its very nature change, transformation and co-evolution Research on these processes is a strategic priority Fourth, a research program in digital government requires sound, scholarly research design and methods Attention to improvements in the design of research on digital government would strengthen the validity and reliability of results and make it possible for findings to accrete over time The Digital Government Program should continue to require high-quality research design, as all National Science Foundation research programs It should encourage systematic deductive and inductive approaches as well as confirmatory and exploratory research given the range of research questions and lack of scholarly, including applied, research in the domain of digital government The Digital Government Program should sponsor workshops held in cooperation with the social science research programs to continue to develop connections between major social science theories, concepts, and studies and research questions in the domain of digital government Small incentives to social and applied social 25 science researchers and doctoral students are likely to have a large payoff in terms of building the community of researchers and the knowledge base The Digital Government Program should develop a portfolio approach to research funding that explicitly incorporates social science and applied social science research in the service of understanding and influencing technological design, development and use in governance A portfolio should include technical, social, and sociotechnical projects; short-, medium-, and long-range projects; and research focused on the topics and issues described in this report, including emergent organizational forms, inter-organizational (specifically, governmentto-government or cross-agency) arrangements, civic engagement and interest group behavior as well as studies of individual citizen behavior related to digital government; and explicit study of dynamic systems including models of change, transformation, co-evolution, and learning Comparative research should be encouraged as one means to move beyond single case study design to improve generalizability of results Comparative research, in a second sense of the term, should also include cross-sectoral and cross-national studies Cross-national studies are important as a means to promote technology and knowledge transfer Moreover, cross-national research is necessary to build an understanding of the relationship between state structure, in terms of policymaking instruments, history, and culture, and the development of digital government The Digital Government Program should consider development of two major studies: a long-range, panel study focused on state governments and a large-scale comparative study of state structure and digital government across a sample of major, developed nations A focus on state government exploits an opportunity to promote technology and knowledge transfer among state governments during a critical time in the development of digital government Comparative study at the state level would complement the comparative study of the Quicksilver initiatives already funded through the National Center for Digital Government at Harvard Comparative, crossnational study would begin to build scholarly comparative research in digital government as well as increase the probability that innovative practical solutions to governance challenges will be harvested Practitioners remain in urgent need of unbiased information to inform current decisionmaking concerning technology and its use in government The requirement by the Digital Government Program that researchers partner with government agencies in order to ground research in practical, current problems should continue In addition, the Program should explicitly encourage research and tools to promote practitioner access to knowledge and knowledge, as well as technology, transfer across governments The academy tends to discourage research products written for practical audiences Therefore, the National Science Foundation might partially offset these disincentives with “counter” incentives to support such products for the benefit of the nation Finally, the workshop reaffirmed the important role played by the Digital Government Program in the development and support of a digital government research agenda The Digital Government Program within the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering pioneered support for research on the technologies and applications required for digital government The program requires researchers to work with government agency partners in order to ground research in current, practical challenges faced by government In addition, it has employed a network-building approach not only funding research, but also building the community of scholars and practitioners necessary to produce a sustainable, coherent research agenda The logic is compelling for a natural extension of these efforts to include central research questions of organization and governance in the portfolio of research topics associated with a digital government research agenda for the nation 26 REFERENCES 27 WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS Executive Committee Jane E Fountain, Harvard University, Chair Eugene Bardach, University of California, Berkeley Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University Stephen Goldsmith, Harvard University Eduard Hovy, University of Southern California Steven Kelman, Harvard University John Leslie King, University of Michigan Workshop Participants Stuart Bretschneider, Syracuse University Noshir Contractor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign David Lazer, Harvard University Norman Lorentz, U.S Office of Management and Budget Gary Marchionini, University of North Carolina Brinton Milward, University of Arizona Carlos Osorio, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laurence O’Toole, University of Georgia R Karl Rethemeyer, University of New York at Albany Maria Christina Scharf, Harvard University Charles Schweik, University of Massachusetts David Stark, Columbia University Nicole Steckler, Oregon Health & Science University Anthony Townsend, New York University James Van Wert, U.S Small Business Administration Richard Varn, State of Iowa Janet A Weiss, University of Michigan Darrell West, Brown University National Science Foundation Sponsors Lawrence E Brandt, Digital Government Program Valerie Gregg, Digital Government Program C Suzanne Iacono, Digital Society and Technologies Program Frank P Scioli, Political Science Program Sue Stendebach, Digital Government Program 28 NOTES 29 The Digital Government Program, the Digital Society Program, and the Political Science Program of the National Science Foundation awarded a grant to Harvard University to organize and convene a workshop for the purpose of advancing a basic digital government research agenda with emphasis on those social and applied social sciences whose focus is governance, organizations, institutions, public management and administration, complexity and networks The workshop was meant to provide guidance and recommendation to support and broaden the leadership of the National Science Foundation in digital government research The workshop was designed to outline and support development of a long-range, basic research plan and longer-term vision for research needs in digital government focused on organizational, institutional, and governance issues The research agenda is intended to complement an existing technical research and development agenda Its purpose was to identify theory and research from the social and policy sciences likely to have substantial payoff in the domain of digital government research The national workshop convened social scientists, technical specialists, and government executives The workshop website is located at http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/digitalcenter As used in this report, the definitions of information technology, governance, and organizations are intentionally broad: Information technology refers to the full range of information and communication technologies and applications currently used in digital and electronic government as well as those information technologies, systems, and applications on the developmental horizon Governance encompasses the structures, processes, and behaviors that together provide steering and rowing functions in government These include traditional fields within political science, the more applied fields of public policy, management and administration, and governance within complex, adaptive systems, including markets Organization is used in its most expansive sense of coordination and control in multi-actor settings to accomplish complex tasks It includes formal organizations as well as institutions, interorganizational arrangements, and social networks Typically, the organizations of interest will be government agencies or programs at the federal, state, or local levels The term also includes other branches of government and may include private or nonprofit entities that play a role in the production or delivery of government information or services Research concerning digital government is broadly defined as research related to the intersection of government practices and information technologies Some experts define “digital government research” as those activities that advance a process or opportunity for government to build a strategic vision given a technology horizon that is approximately five years into the future Electronic government, or egovernment refers to the current potential to build government services and practices using existing technologies and applications The social and applied social sciences refer to the social science disciplines – sociology, psychology, economics, political science, and anthropology – and the applied fields that focus on practical government and organizational problems and that draw in varying degrees from the related disciplines The applied fields relevant for this report include public policy, management, and administration; and organizational behavior ... To Promote IT-enabled Change in Government This paper delineates the contours of a research program to promote and to illuminate IT-enabled change in the government sector A growing, but as yet... systematic research design, findings and methods fail to accumulate and to produce a base upon which researchers can build A basic research agenda should: • • • Include a portfolio approach to investments... may be no reason, for example, why a particular organization located in one state that is effective at operating a governmental service cannot also act as a contractor to another state using Internet